Mother’s Day is Sunday and the retail circus is in full-court press when it comes to trying to increase sales. I, of course, start thinking about what I want to do for my own mother, as well as the other mothers in my life. How can I honor them?

That led to wishing I had a partner who would help the kids do something sweet for me…or buy me flowers…or take me out to lunch. Before I knew it, I’d gotten myself in a funk. I thought about the time when my kiddos asked me what special thing I was going to make for dinner and dessert to celebrate Mother’s Day (which is actually kind of funny), because they got the concept that Mother’s Day was about celebration, but they were too young to understand what that meant. I was always the person who planned celebrations, so why wouldn’t I be the one to make this special too?

So, on a PMS low and still smarting from some recent ugliness, I got in a feel-sorry-for-myself funk.

It lasted for about an hour, long enough for me to ask my other single and divorced mom friends if they ever had Mother’s Day sadness. Everyone who answered came back with “yes”. As usually happens when I talk to friends, not only did I feel supported, but it also allowed me to take a step back and see things a bit more clearly.

The truth is, I’m amazingly lucky. I’ve got two children who are healthy and gifted with so many wonderful things: Intelligence, creativity, humor, beauty. They have a father who wants to be a part of their life and who assists me financially. They have a stepmother who tries to be a meaningful, positive presence in their lives. I have a tribe of family and friends who are there for us when we need them. My own mother is still alive and healthy and a constant presence in my life.

Not everyone has these blessings.

There’s my friend who lost her firstborn to cancer when he was a very young boy. I know she has a constant ache in her heart that will never leave.

There’s my coworker who had two miscarriages within a year, who still grieves those losses. She’s still dreaming of the day when she’ll become a mother.

There’s my friend who is a divorced mother of three, two of whom were diagnosed with Autism. Not only does the father not provide any financial support, he also makes no effort to be a part of his children’s lives. This mother does whatever she has to do to support her kids and give them every advantage she can, while also being the one daily who cares for their needs. She’s stated before that she’d be grateful if her one child was even able to verbalize “I love you”.

There are the women who’ve lost their own mothers and every Mother’s Day is a remembrance of grief.

Then there’s me. Two living, healthy, amazing kids. An ex-partner who despite our many differences still supports his children and wants to be a good parent. A mother I get to talk to daily if I want. Yet I grieved for the breakfast in bed or flowers I wouldn’t get. I felt sorry for myself that Mother’s Day ends up feeling like every other day.

Perspective is a wonderful thing and I went from sad and feeling sorry for myself to grateful within a very short span of time. I’m blessed and I need to realize it every single day.

Being a mother is amazing…and hard…and very often a job where the recognition of all the effort put in can be scanty. A day that honors mothers is nice, but it’s only one day. It’s the unexpected look of gratitude and the soft “Thank you” that comes with a hug that recognizes me. It’s the surprise cards, poems, and acts of thoughtfulness that touch my heart. It’s the sincere, “I know you do so much for us and we appreciate it.” that I get once in awhile that gives honor to the effort I put in. Most importantly, it’s watching them grow and become lovely, strong, capable young women. It’s knowing that if I do my job well enough, they’ll get to a point where they can stand on their own.

To all the mothers out there putting their heart and soul into raising kids into healthy, happy, competent adults: You are amazing. You are worthy of breakfast in bed and flowers, gifts and cards; I hope you get them. You are worthy of honor, respect, and gratitude. No matter how you came into being a mother, you are special. So happy early Mother’s Day, Sunday and every other day of the year.

Noticing my blog views were crazy, off-the-charts high, I wondered what was going on. So I opened up my app and looked at some of the referring websites. One in particular seemed strange to me, so I followed it. What I found was a nasty surprise.

Mean girl syndrome can, apparently, last into middle age. I won’t go into a lot of detail about what I found there, except to say that it was a nasty critique of my blog and even worse, what they perceived as my failings as a human being and as a mother. Followed by lots of others jumping on the bandwagon. The person who began this has a slanted, peripheral, yet weirdly connected view of my life. They also clearly have a lot of issues with me personally.

Ironically, you might even say I got the ball rolling in the mean girl cyber world. Approximately 4 years ago, I posted something in my blog that reflected my most petty thoughts. They definitely weren’t a reflection of my best self, nor the person I wanted to be. However, despite removing them as soon as I found out the subject of the blog had read it, the damage was done. The hurt could not be apologized away.

Today, I’m the recipient of petty thoughts and meanness and it feels bad. Yet…hard to cast stones when I had to learn that lesson myself. I can wish all day long it was different and that the individual hadn’t chosen to perpetuate the cycle. But in the end, the words we put out into the world move in ways we can’t always control and can sometimes have ramifications we can’t predict.

So today, rather than continue on with the she said/she said drama game, I would like to offer an apology again. That thinking my blog, years ago, was anonymous enough that she wouldn’t find out and it allowed me to post things I’m not proud of. N0 excuse for putting it out there, but it was a powerful lesson to relearn. Once we put it out there, we can’t control it anymore. I’m sorry for the pain it caused and for the ways in which it is still living today, despite removing it from cyberspace years ago. I’m not proud of it and I wish I hadn’t done it.

The truth is, I’m flawed and I’m continually trying to battle those flaws. As anyone who’s read this blog will clearly know. Those who know me and read it see such a fuller picture and so my flaws are forgiven by them.

They see a mom who has been honest about her struggles with depression and the ways in which heartbreak has sometimes triggered that. They also see a mom who never lets it prevent her from taking care of her kids. They see kids that can witness a mother struggle with depression and sadness, a mom who cries sometimes, and realize that it’s okay to struggle. The victory is in the ability to continue doing your best, day after day, and getting up to face the world. They’ll see a mother who never gives up, who is always there for them and who works through her feelings rather than stuffing them. Do I lean on my kids too much? Perhaps if you only know me through my blog, you might read about my wise twelve year old who says something profound about love and life and think she has to constantly care-take me. If you know ME and my children, you’ll absolutely know that I’m teaching them that empathy and compassion are vital in human relationships and that sometimes we need people and sometimes we are needed. Is my child giving me a hug or telling me I just haven’t found the right person wrong if she finds out a relationship ended? Is she care-taking and having to be the adult? Have I overshared if she knows I’ve been involved with someone and that it’s ended? As I found out tonight, clearly there are some who think so. That’s ok-they get to make those decisions for themselves and their kids. Or maybe they’ve not been single, with kids. Who knows?

I know I’ve never dragged men in and out of my children’s lives. I know that in eight years of being single, they’ve met one of my significant others that I was involved with for two years. My children are sacred and so is my time with them. When I have them, it’s their time. When I don’t, they have known that I date.

And yes, I perhaps talk about my feelings a lot in this blog. That’s sort of why I started it. 🙂 It was a place for me to process and be vulnerable about things I struggle with. Clearly, the problem with vulnerability is that it leave you…well…vulnerable.. That’s ok too. There’s been plenty of times when I read something vulnerable someone posted and felt so soothed, because I could say “Hey! We’re all human beings. We all go through shit sometimes.”

As a single mom, I don’t have all the answers. There are days that I feel like my girls and I could take the world by storm, because I feel like as a mother-daughter team, we’re invincible. There are other days I sit and cry at the end of it, because I’m scared I’m screwing it all up and I just wish I had some support.

That’s the thing: I don’t have all the answers. I don’t expect other mothers, birth or step, to have all the answers either. We’re in this because we have been granted the amazing, terrifying, exciting and sometimes heartbreaking privilege of guiding amazing human beings into adulthood. The most beautiful and difficult challenge one could ever take on. Whether you carried the child in your body for nine months or you fell in love with the child’s father and the child and became part of their lives later.

What would it be like if we actually supported each other? Instead of cutting each other down with petty criticisms designed to make one person superior and the other inferior. Everyone needs to vent sometimes. But maybe…just maybe…if you tried to see that person as a human being who is doing their best, instead of as an adversary you need to have others rally around you to tear down, we could do an even better job parenting these amazing kids we’ve managed to have brought into our lives.

So…I’m going to keep writing my blog. Which is scary, because I’m making myself vulnerable. By doing that, I know you may use the opportunity to try make me appear small or one-dimensional to others. You may use the chance to pick apart my flaws–trust me, you’ll find them. You may mock me and use it against me. I’m still going to keep writing my blog. I hope you don’t. I hope that perhaps we can just band together to work on behalf of the human beings in our lives, who love us both.

However, that is up to you. It’s up to all of you. Be the light or be the darkness…which, yes, one of my flaws is a tendency toward the melodramatic when I write. Sue me. 🙂 I was part of the cycle and I’m really hoping the cycle ends with me. Mothering is hard, whether the babies came from your body or not. Amazing…and hard. Why don’t we try building each other up?

Sunday was Mother’s Day, which is celebrated in America as though it were holy. Mothers are suddenly elevated to Christ-like status and cards, gifts and visits are all lined up to make sure the women who gave birth to us know how amazing we think they are. I got texts from people I barely know proclaiming: “Happy Mother’s Day!” This morning everyone is asking: “How was your Mother’s Day?”. Because, of course, I must have been in a swoon of maternal bliss all day long, right?

Well…

This past week I’ve felt amazed, grateful, horrified, amused, angry, touched, bewildered, bewitched and horrified by my children, sometimes all within the same hour. I’ve kissed them and told them how amazing they are, then the same day yelled at them and asked why they were being jerks. I’ve looked at both of them and wondered how they managed to grow up and become so mature, then wanted to toss them out the window a few hours later for fighting over who gets to sit on my lap first. Actually, I’ve wanted to toss them out the window multiple times. I missed them all the nights they were with their Dad, then wondered why I missed them when they were finally back with me.

Saturday morning I was in my car driving for an hour trying to get to my child’s volleyball game. When a huge traffic glitch made me miss the game (indeed, I never even made it to the game), I pulled over into a parking lot and cried for ten minutes at the thought of disappointing her. On Mother’s Day I ooohed and aaahed over the handmade gifts they made for me, then I made them lunch and helped mediate several small sibling skirmishes. I helped my oldest pack for a week-long field trip (the longest time away from home ever) and took her shopping for last-minute camping gear ($90 that I could ill-afford). I made a special dinner (last meal before the long trip!). When the break-and-bake cookies I purchased the day before as special treat could not be located (I’m sure I’ll find them rotting somewhere insane later), instead, we moved to a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies as a second-rate treat…then abandoned them when we discovered an ant infestation creating a home amidst the chocolate chips. Finally, scrounging, I dipped a scoop of only slightly freezer-burned vanilla ice cream and drizzled chocolate and chocolate chips over the top. It was pronounced mostly good and the dessert treat was saved.

Later that night, as I was cuddling them both (in my bed, as a special treat again) they bickered over who was touching more of my body. It was “stop making that noise!” and “You’re on my side!”. Finally, one of my children comments on how skinny she is and how she feels like a freak. I reply back with: “All bodies are different. You’re very thin and your sister is more rounded and you’re both beautiful.” This prompts my youngest to proclaim: “You’re saying I’m fat!”. I very emphatically deny this and let her know I am NOT saying she’s fat.

“Everyone thinks I’m fat.”

“That’s simply not true. What makes you say that?” I ask her gently. Her lip trembles and she finally says, *— called me a ‘big, fat pig’!” Turning toward her and holding her, I tell her firmly: “You are not a big, fat pig. You are a beautiful, smart, amazing girl and I love you. Anyone who says that is simply wrong and being very unkind. I’m so sorry they said that about you. I’ll bet that hurt your feelings, didn’t it?”

Her lip trembling dissolved into weeping and she buried her face in my neck. As I tried to talk to her about it, her sister tapped impatiently on the wall and made little, huffing noises of unhappiness. Finally, the oldest bursts out with: “This is SO boring. I’m so bored. Can we PLEASE stop talking about this? It makes me feel awkward.” Her sister continues to weep her pain and hurt into my neck…

…and I briefly wonder if I’m raising a child completely devoid of compassion, who will grow up to be a sociopath. A few more impatient words from her about boredom and I finally lose it and furiously tell her to leave the room if she’s so bored. Which she does. I mutter an exhausted and exasperated, “Jesus!”, to which my youngest begins to recite the 10 commandments to me (WTF???) and tells me I’m taking God’s name in vain (again…WTF???). My frustration level growing, I snap at her, tell her sister to come and get in the bed, then turn off the light and leave the room. Thirty minutes later I pass by the room and hear my oldest daughter calling out to me.

“Mom…I’m sorry.” She says in a quiet voice. I hug her and we have a conversation about compassion and I tell her I love her. I kiss her sleeping sister’s forehead. I clean up the kitchen, start laundry and take care of last-minute details for the big field trip. Upon coming to bed and kissing my sleeping children again (because I’m sad that I snapped at them), I realize I am so heartsick about the “big, fat pig” comment that I can’t sleep. At midnight I get back up and do yoga, then finally fall into bed 30 minutes later. At 5 a.m. I’m awakened by my oldest, informing me her sister has peed in the bed. So I get back up, put dry towels under her butt and force her to get up and strip off the wet clothes. I lay there for 30 minutes, realizing my alarm will be going off at 6, then finally get up and start the day (which now includes stripping the bedding). I make them a great breakfast, for which they both hug and kiss me and say “thank you”.

And that’s motherhood.

Sometimes I am understanding and patient, knowing just the right thing to say. Sometimes I’m frustrated and lose my temper, yell, then have to go back and apologize. Sometimes I’m so on top of this parenting thing I amaze myself. Then other days I realize the shoebox I’ve given my child to carry her show-and-tell to school in has a half-naked pin-up girl on it. There are moments I’m driving down the road and we’re all singing at the top of our lungs and I see happy, rosy-cheeked kids and feel like a success. Then they open up the glovebox and discover breast-augmentation pads I tried as a lark one night, then felt ridiculous and pulled them out before I arrived at my destination. I’ve spent hours composing notes from fairies, sprinkling rose-petals in a trail for birthdays, baking birthday treats, giving massages and cuddles and kissing an infinite number of boo-boos (of the heart and the body). I’ve also (according to my little morality police daughters) said “Fuck” four times in front of them, once told them they had driven me to drinking, have yelled and called them little jerks and more nights than I’d like, watch tv with them instead of doing crafty things or baking. Because I’m exhausted and I just want us to all sit there and be drugged for awhile. I once attempted to drug my oldest with valerian root tea so she would just GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP. She was up for 3 and 1/2 hours. I’ve watched my youngest pull out stripper dance moves and wondered, horrified, if she somehow learned them from me.

That’s motherhood too.

I was a fully-formed human being before I had this awesome responsibility of being a mother. Guess what? I still am. The evolution of my being is a work in progress and so is my parenting. There are no saints in this world. I’m going to do amazing things and I’m going to do shitty things and at the end of the day, I’m going to pray the good outweighs the bad. I’m busting my ass to try to do my best, to raise these amazing little people into amazing adults. It’s hard work! Yes, I get paid in kisses and hugs and hand-made cards and that has a sweetness to it. Yet, let’s be honest. Parenting is the hardest work you’ll ever do for the least immediate compensation. Parenting is a garden; I’m spending hours preparing the beds, planting and tending the seeds, in the hope that one day I’ll have these healthy, breathtaking flowers. Yet I won’t get to see the full fruits of this labor all at once. This is something that will take years to fully blossom.

So…kudos to all the mother’s out there who are planting and tending, hoping their love and work infuse their children with the strength to stand on their own as healthy and happy adults who bring something beautiful to the world. I applaud you for the nights you crawl, exhausted, into bed after a day where you felt like Atlas with the weight of the heavens on your shoulders. I pray you have strength to carry on, to bear your burdens and your childrens, to wipe your tears and theirs away when you need to. I am right there with you as you cheer them on during volleyball and softball, cello recitals and school plays, times when they are hurting and there’s nothing you can do. I’m also the one standing firm on “Go clean the bathroom like I told you to an hour ago, because you’re a member of this family and you’re going to help!” even when you know you could do a better job without them. Like you, there will be nights I remove privileges, knowing I’m going to get a miserable, hellish evening in return, because they have to know there are consequences in life. I’ll be the one saying “Eat your vegetables. Turn off the tv. Do your homework. Be nice to your sister. Clean your room. Don’t throw the ball in the house (CRASH!). BE NICE TO YOUR SISTER!!!”

And although the garden will be a slow process, with tiny flowers here and there and some blooms it might take years to see…it’s still worth it. Somehow, for all the back-breaking, exhausting work (mental and physical), the best words of praise you’ll ever get are tiny hands around your neck and “You’re the best mommy in the world and I love you.” That moment when you see the life lessons you’ve been trying to instill in them since birth, coming out in their day-to-day lives…yeah, that’s a “this is worth it” moment. Or when you watch your kid stand up to someone who’s in the wrong and she refuses to back down just because it’s scary and would be easier to just cave and be a follower. Well, it’s hard to beat that for reward. The hope that one day I’ll get to watch them as adults and know they might have pain, but they’ll be okay because I gave them the tools they need…

Maybe I’m starting to get Mother’s Day a little more. Not the media-hyped version, but the day where kids are reminded to say “Thanks” and our society takes a pause for recognition. The handmade birdhouses and mugs, the cards drawn with love, the beaming joy and pride on a kid’s face when they’re celebrating YOU and hoping it makes you feel cherished, love and appreciated.